In the Neighborhood
by Dixiegirl256
Summary: In celebration of our first Fringe Friday of Season Five... a Season 4 story, set just before 4.15, A Short Story About Love. Mothers love their sons, in any timeline, in any universe.


I always wish we'd seen more of Peter's relationship with Elizabeth in Season 4.

Many thanks, as always, to my quantum entangled Beta, OConnellAboo. Without her encouragement (and most excellent editing and advice), this story would still be just another "what if" in my mind...

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In the Neighborhood

It was a drizzly Saturday afternoon, the kind of day that makes one wonder if Boston forgot it was spring. Raindrops chased each other down the windowpanes of the Victorian style house, illuminated by the faint glow from the front room.

Peter sat at the dining room table, its surface covered, as usual, by the schematics of the Machine. He wore a faded blue t-shirt and jeans, worn white in spots. They were his favorite pair of jeans, and he still wondered how they turned up here, in a universe where he hadn't previously existed. His feet were bare, and his hair looked as if he'd been running his fingers through it in frustration – an accurate reflection of his state of mind. He'd been studying the diagrams again, and felt no closer to understanding the logic of the Machine than he did when he started.

The knock on the door surprised him; he knew Walter and Astrid were working at the lab today, doing an inventory in preparation for a shopping trip for lab supplies next week. He didn't think Olivia would just drop by again (not after last night), and after their confrontation in Olivia's apartment, he didn't expect Lincoln to be stopping in for a beer, either.

He padded to the front door, running a hand over his disheveled hair, trying in vain to smooth it into some semblance of order. He expected someone selling magazine subscriptions or salvation… or both; he was quite surprised to see the slight figure of a woman standing before him.

"Mo – Elizabeth…" He was startled to see Elizabeth Bishop from the Other Side, her dark hair loosely pinned up and a gray wool wrap tossed around her shoulders. He stepped back, opening the door wider. "Please, come in."

"Thank you, Peter. I'm not disturbing you, am I?" She stepped into the entry and gazed at her surroundings. Peter had cleaned the house, made it livable, but it still had the comfortable, cluttered feel that reminded him of the house he shared with His Walter – books everywhere, mismatched furniture that welcomed you to prop your feet up and settle in, even a piano. There was a small overnight bag by the front door, and an open backpack leaning against it.

"No, not at all… I was just – " Peter gestured at the diagrams scattered about the room, at a loss to describe exactly what he was doing.

"Ah, yes… I've seen those a lot lately," Elizabeth said as she stood in front of a poster-sized drawing of the Machine. "Walter spent a number of evenings going over the material you gave him." She turned to Peter with a regretful look on her face. "He was quite upset that he couldn't help you."

"Oh, but he did," Peter replied with a small smile. "More than he could imagine." He walked toward the kitchen. "Would you like something? A cup of coffee, or tea? Or something else?"

Elizabeth followed him to the kitchen. "Coffee, or tea – whatever's easier." She gazed approvingly around the tidy kitchen. "You cook?"

Peter opened a tin of coffee beans and the rich aroma filled the kitchen. "I get by. Walter… my Walter, in my timeline… well, food was - is very important to him." He smiled at the memories of Walter puttering around the kitchen. As the coffee brewed, Peter set mugs, sugar, and spoons on the counter, then opened the refrigerator and peered inside.

He looked at Elizabeth sheepishly. "I really wasn't expecting anyone. I don't have cream for the coffee." He sniffed the milk carton suspiciously. "Milk's good, though."

Elizabeth's laugh sounded like wind chimes in a light breeze. "Ah, Peter… you're just the man that I always imagined you'd be."

Peter looked at her thoughtfully. "Waltern – your Walter said something very much like that."

After filling their mugs with steaming coffee, they walked back to the living area. Peter gathered up the blankets and pillows from the couch and dumped them onto a chair nearby, then gestured for Elizabeth to take a seat.

"Peter, do you need anything? Furniture, a bed?" Elizabeth looked around the room.

"There are bedrooms upstairs, furnished… but, " Peter hesitated. "Sleeping upstairs bring back too many memories. I tried it for a few nights, but… anyway, the couch is fine. I've certainly slept on worse."

Peter knelt in front of the fireplace and lit a small fire. The glow made the room cozy and intimate. He sat next to Elizabeth and sipped his coffee.

"It's wonderful to see you, of course… But is there a reason for your visit? I can't imagine that it's easy to cross over, even for the Secretary's wife."

Elizabeth smiled fondly at Peter. "I don't guess you would believe that I was in the neighborhood?" Her laugh brought a smile to Peter's face. She set her coffee mug on a nearby table and cupped Peter's cheek. "Honestly? I just wanted to spend a little more time with you… while I still can."

Peter took her hand and looked down. "Elizabeth… you know – "

"Yes, Peter, I know who you are." She took his hand in both of hers and gazed at him. "But your Elizabeth… the one that raised you… she loved you as her own, didn't she?"

He nodded.

"And if my Peter… if he had lived," she paused and drew a breath, composing herself before she continued. "If he were with another version of me, I would want her to love him as I would. You understand that?"

Peter nodded again.

"Mothers love their sons. I think that transcends everything else. Peter, intellectually, I know that you are not my son, but my heart tells me that you are." She squeezed his hand and he smiled.

"Indulge me, Peter. Let me have memories of a son that did grow up, fall in love, and have babies."

Peter's smile faded and he looked at the floor. September's words echoed in his mind - _"You had a son."_ He pulled his hand from Elizabeth's and ran it over his face.

"Oh, Peter, I'm so sorry. I'm overstepping my boundaries, please forgive me."

"No, no, it's not that," Peter reassured Elizabeth quickly, but his words did nothing to lessen the concern on her face. He picked up his almost full mug and said "I'm getting more coffee, can I get you anything?" as he stood and headed back to the kitchen.

Elizabeth looked thoughtful as she glanced around the room. "Are you planning a trip, Peter?"

Peter chuckled. "Mothers are the same everywhere, aren't they? Never miss a thing." He rejoined Elizabeth on the couch and set his steaming mug back on the table.

As he looked at her, he saw HIS Elizabeth when he was young – before the years of stress with an increasingly unstable husband and the strain of being on her own with a recalcitrant teenager had taken their toll. He remembered the short period of time he spent with the other Elizabeth, his biological mother, during his ill-fated visit to the Other Side; she also showed the wear and tear of years without answers to her son's whereabouts and a husband that became increasingly bitter and distant from the woman he blamed for his son's disappearance.

This Elizabeth's hair was still dark and gleaming against her unlined ivory skin. Her eyes were bright and inquisitive as she smiled at Peter. She exuded the confidence of a woman comfortable in her skin, with her position in life, and her position in the lives of others.

"I'm sorry," he said, a faint blush tinting his cheeks. "I don't mean to stare, but you… you remind me so much of my Elizabeth from when I… when Walter…" Peter stammered, unsure of how to phrase his thoughts without stumbling into the pitfalls of children stolen (or worse, dead), crossing universes and timelines, and comparing this Elizabeth to one long in the grave.

"It's complicated, isn't it? Our language doesn't exactly accommodate time travel or inter-dimensional crossings." She took his hand again and pulled him to face her. "Is it hard for you to see me, Peter?" she said softly.

"No, no, it's just…" Peter felt strangely comfortable with this Elizabeth. Her face radiated affection for him unabashedly, and she seemed as strong now as she did when she was shielding him from the DoD soldiers that stormed her house looking for him a few weeks ago. "You look like my mother when I was younger, before…. Before everything seemed to overwhelm her. "

Elizabeth smiled. "Ah, that's what every woman wants to hear… that she looks twenty years younger."

"You look younger than the other Elizabeth in my old universe, too. It seems like life had been very hard for her, too."

"She and her Walter were not very close, were they?" Elizabeth asked. When Peter shook his head, she continued. "And they didn't know what happened to their son, to you, for many years?" Peter shook his head again, quietly watching her face, his eyes dark.

Elizabeth reached for his hands again, and clasped them in her own. "It was very hard for us, when we learned what happened to you…. To our Peter, that he had drowned." She smiled wistfully, then continued with an unwavering voice. "But we _knew_, Peter. We knew what had happened, and why. We leaned on each other so much back then, Walter and I. You know better than I, of course, you know these people… but I think my life was easier, our lives, because we didn't have to wonder what happened to you."

Peter started to speak, and found his voice failed him, choked by emotion he didn't realize he still felt. "I think her Walter blamed her for letting me go… he was such a bitter man." He scowled as he remembered the Walternate of the future, promising Peter that he would know loss as intimately as he had, watching his world irrevocably crumble before him.

Elizabeth stroked his forehead gently. "You Bishop men… you can't hide your feelings behind your furrowed brow." She put her hand under his chin and tilted his face towards her. "Tell me."

She sat patiently, a calm smile on her face. Peter looked at her, then closed his eyes. He'd felt so alone here, ever since he'd heard this Olivia say "Who are you?" Those fleeting moments when he thought he'd found her, that somehow the world had changed around him and brought her back to him, only made the realization more painful, when he realized that nothing had changed at all and that Walter was right – he was seeing what he wanted to see.

He was so alone, and next to him sat a woman that looked, and sounded, and felt like a safe haven. She was the ONLY person that recognized him, that knew him in this place where, for all practical purposes, he didn't exist. His mind clicked through all the possibilities; he couldn't think of a single reason not to talk to her, and his isolation gave him a thousand reasons why he should.

"Are you sure? You want to hear this?"

"Peter… I want to hear anything you care to tell me." Elizabeth settled back into the corner of the couch, but her eyes never left Peter's face.

He thought back through all the events that had brought him here, wondering where to start. At least this Elizabeth understood alternate universes. He smiled wryly, saying "You know how crazy this all will sound?"

She laughed. "Your fa – Walter always tells me to open my mind, that there is no limit to what I might learn."

Peter remembered his Walter telling him something similar, but in less loving tones. He took a deep breath and dived in. "You remember, I didn't know about where I really came from until a couple of years ago…"

He talked about his feelings of betrayal when he learned about his past, and how much it hurt to know that his Walter and Olivia had known and kept the information from him. He talked about leaving Boston, driving to the West Coast, getting as far away as he could from the people who had let him down. About his biological father appearing in his motel room, taking him back to his world.

"When I went to the Other Side in my timeline… " He looked at her questioningly, ensuring that she knew his frame of reference. "…That Walter was very different than… than your Walter."

He told her about waking up to the smell of bacon, spending time with his mother there.

"I never got to tell her goodbye," he said in a low voice. "After I realized what Walter wanted from me… he kept me where he could keep any eye on me. And then Olivia showed up, disguised as her alternate."

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "She pretended to be her alternate, from their Fringe Division?"

Peter nodded. "She was afraid for me. She and Walter figured out a way to cross over. She pretended to be the other Olivia so she could find me and convince me to come home." Peter blinked rapidly; the image of a red-headed Olivia in military garb, standing in front of him in the New York apartment, brought back her words as clearly as if she were standing in front of him right now.

"She told me that," Peter's voice broke and he covered his face briefly. "She told me that I had to come back because I belonged with her. It was the first time…" he smiled wistfully, feeling the memory of that first kiss. "It was the first time she told she cared about me, that we were more than just partners."

Elizabeth smiled back at her son, encouraging him to continue.

"We made it back. William Bell – do you know him?"

"I think Walter knew someone by that name, maybe studied with him? But I think he disappeared in the 70's."

Peter grimaced. "Such a different place. Amazing how just one person can make a difference. Anyway, he and Walter had been lab partners, very close. Bell had been in that universe for years. He and Walter jerry-rigged a way for us to cross back to our home, but when we returned…" Peter's voice trailed off and he looked at the floor. His jaw tightened and when he spoke again, his voice held an undertone of anger.

"The Secretary had switched my Olivia with theirs. They kept her locked up, tried to brainwash her, experimented on her, and were getting ready to kill her. Their Broyles helped her cross over and they _did_ kill him."

Elizabeth's face paled in shock. 'Oh, Peter."

"The worst part…" He continued to look at the floor as he spoke, his voice tight and intense. "The worst part is I didn't realize it wasn't my Olivia. I couldn't tell the difference … I didn't want to see the differences." He gave a short, bitter laugh. "I wanted Olivia to love me, to be with me…"

Elizabeth leaned over and put her hand on Peter's arm as the realization of his meaning sunk in.

"We didn't even realize she was gone."

They sat in silence for a few moments; the only sounds in the room were the soft pops and hisses from the fireplace.

"I should've known. I should've…"

"Peter… she forgave you?"

He nodded mutely.

"She forgave you. You need to forgive yourself."

Peter stood up and stretched, then walked over to kneel at the fireplace. He poked the logs, sending glowing embers into the ash below. He spoke without turning around.

"She did forgive me. But I've betrayed her again. Both of them. All of them."

Finally, Peter returned to the couch and stretched his legs out in front of him. He gazed into the fire for a long moment before he continued.

"Somehow the Machine started on its own. Our world was literally falling apart. I didn't have a choice."

He looked at Elizabeth then, his blue eyes glistening. "She told me she loved me, right before I stepped into the machine. I never got to tell her goodbye, either."

Peter thought about the memories he brought back with him, memories of a future that wouldn't happen now. "If she's still there somewhere… I've got to get back to her. I have to try – she did it for me. I can't run away from her just because it's easier to stay here."

Elizabeth laid her hand on his arm. "But that's what you're getting ready to do again, aren't you?" she said softly, inclining her head towards the bag and backpack in the entry way. "Peter, you've done a lot of running in your life."

Peter smiled at her ruefully. "I should've known I wouldn't be able to sidestep you that easily." He stared into the coffee mug clasped between his hands. "I HAVE done a lot of running. I never felt at home, really, anywhere I went… I just kept moving, so it didn't matter. And sometimes," he turned to her, looking more like a guilty 15 year old boy than a 33 year old man, "Sometimes, it was in my best interests not to hang around. I'm not particularly proud of that now."

Elizabeth squeezed his arm. "We all have a past. What's important is who you are now. " Her eyes were kind, but direct. "What are you running away from, Peter?"

He thought about last night, leaving a stunned Olivia with the EMTs. He still felt the chill of the rain, as if it had settled into his soul.

He shook his head slowly. "I told you about my Olivia. That we were finally building a relationship. She was everything I ever wanted, Mo –" He closed his eyes, and shook his head again. "No one knew me here. No one, until I crossed over."

"I knew you. I could look into your eyes, Peter, and know you are my son, no matter what."

"I thought I could do that, too." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Olivia was remembering things. Things about our life together. I was sure it was her."

"But…?"

"Walter said I was projecting my memories, influencing her, changing her into the person I wanted her to be."

"What do _you_ think, Peter?"

He dropped his head wearily, scrubbing his face with his hands. "I don't know. She knows things… she knows things I couldn't even have told her, things I hadn't told her. How is that possible if it's not her?"

He thought about those few minutes at the gas station, those minutes when he held a woman in his arms that felt like his Olivia, that sounded like his Olivia, that melted into his touch like his Olivia. Just like in all those dreams that had turned to nightmares, the image of Olivia smiling back at him, her face framed in his hands, turned into the last image he had of her, sitting in the rain, devastation in her eyes.

"I can't betray my Olivia, and I don't want to ruin this Olivia's life, if she's someone else." His voice was muffled by his hands covering his face. I walked away from her last night. I couldn't stay…"

Peter's voice broke and Elizabeth gathered him into her arms. He laid his head on her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her waist. All the frustration and loneliness that had built up over the past few weeks escaped; he could feel tears on his cheeks and Elizabeth's soothing touch on his back.

After a few minutes, he felt Elizabeth's hand on his cheek, wiping away his tears. He sat up, embarrassed by his show of emotions. He scrubbed his face and took a deep breath, but before he could speak, Elizabeth grasped both his hands in hers.

"Peter, where will you go? How will leaving make the situation any better for either of you?"

He shook his head. "I know I've hurt her, again. It might be easier if she didn't see me for a few days; maybe the memories will fade."

"But Peter… what if these ARE the real memories? You said she knew things that only your Olivia would know."

"I just don't know… I don't know what to do." Peter's voice was soft, but full of despair. "I just want to go home."

"Peter, Walter… my Walter – spent hours with your documents. He wants to talk to you about them, but, Peter… he thinks you ARE home."

Peter looked at her sharply. "How… I don't understand. It doesn't make sense. I've been over those schematics a million times."

"So has he, Peter, and he keeps coming back to the same conclusion. He explained it to me this way: it would let you go forwards and backwards, to jump in and out of time… but not to cross timelines. Not to cross universes."

"But why? I remember what happened in the future. I remember coming back." Peter looked more distraught. "Why didn't anyone remember me?" He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and put his head in his hands.

"Is it possible that the machine changed the past, as well as the future?" Elizabeth put her hand on Peter's shoulder. "Remember, we lived in a world where you died as a child. That's why no one remembers you. "

"So, why would Olivia start remembering me now? Are they really her memories? Or mine?" Peter ran his hands through his hair. "Am I just seeing what I want to see? I can't do this to her again, I have to find my Olivia."

"Peter, Peter…" Elizabeth gently rubbed his back in circles. "If you need to get away… come back with me. Talk to Walter, maybe that will answer some of your questions. The two of you together, perhaps you can figure something out."

Peter glanced up at Elizabeth. He saw nothing but concern and love on her face. Crossing over would certainly keep him away from this Olivia for a few days, long enough for the memories he might be imposing on her to fade.

"I would like to spend a little more time with you," he said slowly. "And with Walter, if he doesn't mind."

"I'm sure he would be delighted, as would I." Elizabeth passed her hand over his forehead and cupped his cheek. "Even if it's not your reality, Peter… you always have a home with us."

Peter smiled and nodded. "Alright. Let me close up the house and let Broyles know where I'm going."

"I'll let Walter know, he can make the necessary arrangements for you to cross." She stood and adjusted her wrap.

At the door, she turned to him. "We'll see you later, then?"

As he looked at her, Peter saw his mothers gazing back at him. He pulled her into an embrace and rested his cheek against the top of her head. "Yes, Mom," he said softly, and he felt her arms tighten around him. "I'll see you later."

As he released her, he bent to kiss her cheek, and saw her eyes glistening. He blinked his own a couple of times as he opened the door for her, and stood on the porch, watching her walk down the steps and to the waiting town car. The driver stood at the ready, waiting to open her door as she approached. Before she slid into the back seat, she turned and smiled at him again. He raised a hand in parting, then the door was shut and she was on her way. Just as he would be in a few hours.

ooo

Peter was already in the cab when his phone rang.

"Peter, I need you here immediately - where are you?" Walter demanded.

Peter hesitated, then replied, "I'm in a cab on my way to the bus station."

"Bus station? Where are you going?"

"New York." Peter sighed, his voice heavy with resignation. "You wanted me to stay away from her, remember? And a bus is as good a mode of transportation as any when you're trying to get out of town."

"You didn't tell me," Walter huffed. "Anyway, you must come back to the lab at once.

"Why, what's going on?" Peter didn't sound convinced.

"I think the Observer may have done something to your eye," Walter said slowly.

Peter closed his eyes for a moment, then leaned forward to give the cabbie new directions. As the driver turned around, he scrolled through his phone for the number Elizabeth had given him.

"It's Peter. I'm sorry, there's been a change in plans."


End file.
